OF SOCIETY. 549 



which, largely under the sanction of Rousseau's theories, 

 were perpetrated by his followers during the succeeding 

 phases of the French Revolution. He himself published 

 nearly all his political writings at a time when Germany 

 was threatened by the Napoleonic invasion, and when 

 little opportunity was given to carry out in practice any 

 of the theoretical schemes which he or others might be 

 constructing. There is, however, one direction in which 

 Fichte's activity found an outlet and through which he 

 left a mark upon his generation and nation. 



Discouraged by the restrictions which the French 

 rule imposed upon every political activity, especially 

 in Prussia, where he had found a new sphere of action 

 after he had been expelled from Jena, he still saw one 

 direction in which free development was permitted and 

 possible. This was the great work of national educa- 

 tion : its importance forms likewise the final conclusion 

 at which he arrived in his systematic political writings. 

 He had there stated that the new and better order of 

 society which he had in view must be based upon a 

 moral uplifting and intellectual enlightenment of the 

 age; you must first create good men before you can 

 create good citizens or a good order of society. He 

 laid great stress not so much upon separate states and 

 the principle of nationality, which has since played 

 such a great part in the politics of Germany and of 

 some other European countries, as upon that of the 

 People ; meaning by this term that aggregate of human 

 beings which is held together by a common language. 

 A People has, he says, an individual mind in so far 

 as it has an individual language. Applied to the age 



